In the Eye Of the Beholder
by Kittycatkyla
Summary: Part 1 Snipit of IEOB. How can one tell if their sins outweigh their saints? Simple again: You can't. That is a sight that only those special few can see. Those special few could be more commonly known as weigher's. They're very common in all forms of mythology. The three kings that weigh you in Greek mythology. Anubis of Egyptian mythology. And me. The name's Hachimenroppi.


Limbo. "After those who refused choice come those without opportunity of choice."

Lust. "Love of individuals perverted to a possession and carnal desire."

Gluttony. "Love of mutual indulgence perverted to an imperceptible degradation of solitary self-indulgence."

Greed. "Love of mutual indulgence perverted into a declining selfish appetite."

Sloth. "Failure to love God with all one's heart, all one's mind and all one's soul."

Wrath. "Love of justice perverted to revenge and spite."

Envy. "Love of one's own good perverted to a desire to deprive other men of theirs."

Pride. "Love of oneself perverted to hatred and contempt for one's neighbor."

Betrayal. "Love destroyed by the selfish indulgences of those who were trusted."

Such descriptions line out the nine rings of Hell simply and to the point. However, Dante's Inferno states how even the purest of intentions can still be considered sin for desiring that one thing too much. Francesca, for example, held pure love for Paolo de Rimini but that love was burning with a passion that was foul. Because her love for Paolo was so consuming, it made her forget her own vows of fidelity to her husband. Ulysses and Diomedes, using their cleverness under the guise of 'all's fair in love and war' both suffered in Hell for their apparent fraudulence committed in the Trojan War. Even Guido da Montefeltro, who was a good man of the monastery, earned a place in Hell for simply giving bad advice.

In this form of sin, it almost seems pointless to attempt anything other than a nun's or father's regiment. The tiniest of things can be considered a sin as far as Dante's Inferno is concerned.

So why is there such a thing as heaven or hell? If devote Christians can still end up in Hell due to "saying that a man could not receive absolution before sinning, for absolution cannot precede repentance and repentance cannot precede the sin." Would stand to mean that repenting does you nothing and no one is without sin—thus Heaven should be empty. But as the world knows, that can't be the case. If Heaven was empty and Hell was full, then that would make God a cruel jokester. And since God is not a cruel jokester that cannot be the case.

So where does one draw the line between passion and sin?

Simple:

What was your motive behind your passion? What drove you to do the act? Were you thinking of yourself? Or thinking of others? An example of such: The story of Artemis's love for Orion in comparison to Meleager's love for Atalanta.

Meleager was married yet his brief encounter with Atalanta led to a love so fierce, he threw away man-patriarchy to allow Atalanta the right to hunt the Calydonian boar. Meleager never went against his vows to his wife, although his heart beat for another, nor did he pursue Atalanta as a love interest. Because Atalanta was a devoted woman of the hunt and would remain a woman pure. Meleager's love for Atalanta was pure and uncorrupted.

Orion, a devoted hunter as well, fell in love with the Goddess of the Hunt, Artemis. He hunted many creatures to try and gain her eye and her eye he gained. Artemis allowed Orion to join her hunts, the only man in her hunting party. However, Orion wanted more. He wanted Artemis to love him in return. Artemis, as the Goddess of the Hunt, had vow to the hunt and thus would remain a goddess pure—would never know the touch of a man. But Orion cared for that not. All he cared about was what he wanted, and he wanted Artemis to return his feelings.

On both stories, one may not be able to see anything wrong. Both are stories of love. But they have their obvious differences. Meleager was loyal and favored Atalanta's passions over his own. His love was pure. Orion was longing and could not be content with what he had. His love was selfish.

And the only difference that can condemn either part is their intentions behind their passions. You can love someone without every showing them. You can earn a living without longing for more. You can murder without enjoying the kill.

That is the simple difference. One can easily identify their own sins and saints if they stopped to look at themselves philosophically and ask themselves: What is the motivation behind your passion?

However, even if one were to be so philosophical, that doesn't mean they can see that line. If anything, they can trick themselves into believe their intentions are pure and without an ounce of selfishness.

The sad truth of the world is that no one is without sin. Pandora's Box made sure of that. Everyone lies. Everyone cheats. There is no one that can live a life completely uncorrupted. To try would create a paradox of sin that takes the form of self-loathing and micromanagement—a vice of Greed for perfection.

No one can be without sin. But one _can_ gains good-vices. If one strives to be a good person, then they will do good deeds. These goods deeds can accumulate to 'saintly' salvation. Even the most greedy man in the world can convert to a life of good on his last day of Earth. True 'repent' can guide one to salvation. If one were to truly change for the better—not because they are scared of the legacy they leave, not because they are scared of what God will say—then they could easily be handed a stairway to the land of milk and honey.

But that begs the question: How can one tell if their sins outweigh their saints?

Simple again: You can't.

At least, _you _can't. That is a sight that only those special few can see. Those special few could be more commonly known as weigher's. They're very common in all forms of mythology. The three kings that weigh you in Greek mythology. Anubis of Egyptian mythology.

And me.

The name is Hachimenroppi.

Now another question: Why am I a special few?

Yet another simple answer: I'm not like the rest of the world. Those special few that can see your sins and your saints aren't mortals. But higher beings. More commonly known as Gods. Even then, not all the Gods can be so special. Zeus, for instance, could tell if he was dealing with a shady person due to his far sight, however, he couldn't predict the future and could be easily duped by mortals. No, Zeus isn't special enough to separate the damned from the redeemed.

Only a few seldom can. And one of those seldom is my father. He goes by the name Anubis. Raised on earth by a simple Japanese woman, my mother described her elopement with Anubis as a magical night that didn't feel real. Anubis used no special trick to deceive my mother. He didn't woo or seduce her. Instead, he was kind. Courteous. Caring. Anubis spoke not a wit of himself and instead made my mother his priority. Sex only happened because my mother set the mood, with no hinting or flirtation from Anubis to be had. Anubis admitted he had been searching for her, but he had no intention of laying with her. A wave of passion overtook the two and they fell away into an ethereal love making.

I don't know why Anubis was looking for my mom. He never told me. He never told me much of anything. Other than a brief apology so many years ago. He apologized for birthing me, he apologized for cursing me with this gift of sight. He apologized for having to leave me on earth instead of ascending me to the gods. He didn't have permission from Ra to create more Gods and Zeus would be furious to find out a demigod was born after he went through all the trouble of starting the Trojan War just to kill all the demigods of Greece. He apologized for making me the only one of my kind in the twenty-first century.

I was a doe-eyed 12-year-old then, so I didn't know how to take it. As a 23-year-old, I now understand how damned I really am.

To live in a crowded city like Ikebukuro and be surrounded by people all day. To see everyone's sins wafting off them like a silver beam, mingling and crossing with others. It was a hell of a way to live.

See, from what I understand, my abilities aren't as defined as my father's. Anubis can see specifically how many sins and how man saints one individual has. Me, I can only see in shades of colors. Every baby in the world starts out with a pure white 'aura'—to coin a better phrase. Once the child grows old enough to develop their own personality, usually at the age of five or six, that aura starts to get tainted with colors. Instinctually, I know what the separate colors mean. And the darker the color, the worse the sin.

The nine rings of hell fit with the color spectrum. Red-wrath, orange-greed, yellow-gluttony, green-envy, blue-sloth, purple-pride, pink-lust, gray-limbo, black-betrayal, and white-pure. The colors tend to keep to their own splotches on the aura, just varying in sizes depending on what their sin is. Black usually doesn't come separately. More often than not, betrayal is piggy-backing with another sin—the other sin leading to a betrayal. So more often than not, I've seen red hues dyed to a deep maroon or even brown.

Everyone has this aura. Everyone has different sins. And so far, _no one_ passed the age of five has had a pure white aura. So, you can imagine how painful my eyesight must be. Being surrounded by a kaleidoscope of colors, so bright, so in-my-face, all the god damn time. Knowing that I can't leave the house without crossing paths with a rapist or a glutton. Knowing that I'll never see a pure white aura. I can't think of a worse way of living.

It's shown me the simple truth of this world: No one is good. Humanity is flawed and evil.

And I hate all of them.

* * *

"Thank you for meeting with me, Hachimen-san."

I tilt the menu down to stare up a black-haired man. He wore a fur coat and had a cynical sneer on his face, seemingly a permanent part of his features.

"You didn't give me much of a choice." I grumble, putting the menu down. "Lunch is on you, just so you know."

"Of course. I don't mind." The man sat down across the table from me.

This man was Orihara Izaya. He somehow got ahold of my phone number and had threatened to leak my address to questionable people if I refused to meet. I tilt my sunglasses down to peer over them. Pure black. That's a new one. I've never seen a person who had pure black on their aura. I've seen every color spectrum blackened but never just straight black. That means this person lies a lot and manipulates a lot.

Someone I'm definitely not trusting. I shift my glasses back up and look back at the menu.

"Oh, you wear sunglasses indoors, huh?" Izaya said, grabbing the second menu. "You don't have to worry. I already know what you look like."

"That's not why I'm wearing them."

"Then why?"

"Photophobia."

That wasn't a lie. Dear old Dad was always in the dark and dank underworld so shocker, shocker, his eyes were accustomed to darkness not sunlight. And since I got my eyes from him, I got that issue too.

"Oh, that must be such a hassle." Izaya smiled at me.

I glowered.

"Hello, I-Zai-Ya." A black man came up to us.

"Hello, Simon." The Asian smiled. "I'll have my usual."

"I'll have some fatty tuna." I stated and handed him the menu. "Sashimi and nigiri please."

The black man nodded. He had idle conversation with Izaya that I didn't care to listen to. Instead, I pulled out my phone and opened the Pokemon Go app. Let's see if this restaurant was a pokestop. They continued talking before the guy known as Simon turned around and left them. I shift my glasses down to stare at the black man's back—to stare at his aura's.

Red. Maroon red. A lot of it too. He was an individual who killed a lot. However, the center of the splotch was giving away to white—showing that he was repenting somehow. I don't know how without asking. I can only see sins, after all. So whatever sainthood he was pulling to repent was only a vague white to me.

I push my glasses back up and look back to the blackmailer before me. He was scrutinizing me, staring at me intently with that calculating grin on his face. I turn the phone off without checking on that pokestop.

"So, what do you want?" I ask.

The man smiled. "Well, I've heard some interesting things about you. You've been known as quite the vigilante in my line of work."

"I'm not a vigilante."

"Although you've sent many of my clients to jail through your investigations."

"Your clients are crooks. That's not my problem."

"I would agree if they had done something to warrant attention from the police."

"I'm a PI. Not a police officer."

"But they hadn't done anything. They were crooked people, but they weren't stupid. They didn't expose any of their ill-achieved gains to anyone. Yet you found out."

"I'm a PI. Investigating's in the name."

"No one asked you to investigate them."

"How would you know that?"

The man chuckled. "It's my job to find out these kind of details. I'm an informant, you see."

"That explains a lot."

"And after a brief investigation of you, I know no one paid you to look into my clients. You just 'happened' to get a hint. I want to know where that hint came from."

I shrug. "Sorry. Couldn't tell you."

"Not even if I leak your address to some of the men you have wronged?"

"They wronged themselves, first off. If they were without sin, I wouldn't have to get involved. Second off, I've got my ways of doing things. You wouldn't understand."

"I'm very open-minded."

"Not to the extent you need in order to understand me."

Izaya stared at me. For a long moment he said nothing. "Does it have something to do with your eyes?"

I cock a brow. "Why would you come to that conclusion?"

The black man returned with drinks. He placed them on the table, I gave my thanks, and he walked away.

"You say you have photophobia." Izaya continued. "Yet you shift your shades down to stare at someone directly. And it's not hard for me to see the gold lacing your eyes. The red makes it difficult to tell, but you have streaks of gold in your iris. That's…quite unique. If I didn't know better, I would say your iris was collapsing." He grinned at me. "But I know better."

…Well, isn't he observant.

He chuckled at my silence. "I also noticed your complexion. You're a bit dark for an Asian. I assumed your Filipino or maybe Khoisan. But a quick background check shows your mother is a pure Japanese and unsurprisingly, there's no father on record."

Not on legal records.

"And?" I ask. "What's your verdict?"

"I don't know yet. I get a feeling you're a special individual. Maybe not a Saika. Maybe not a reaper. But something different."

I roll my eyes and scoff. "You watch too many fantasy anime."

I know what he's talking about as far as Saika. I got plenty of information about the brawl between the mind-controlled individuals and Heiwajima Shizuo. I don't know what Saika is, but I know it was some spirit realm entity that controlled many of people for the sake of loving Shizuo. Yet another perverted love. Another twisted love.

Yes, I know. But _he_ doesn't need to know that.

Izaya smiled. "Have you never met the Black Rider?"

"I've seen her around."

"Oh, you know her gender? Most people assume she's a boy because of the lack of shade—what with being a shadow and all."

…Fuck, he caught me there.

"I've never met her." I say.

"But you know of her."

"I've seen her in the news and on the streets."

"Then how do you know she's female?"

"Research."

"What kind of research?"

"I'm a PI."

"So? Private Investigators don't look into monsters."

"That motorcycle cop is always chasing her. I figured I'd put my hand in the basket to try and bring her to justice."

"Has she done anything unjustified?"

"No plates or headlights on her bike. Along with gang affiliation and resisting arrest. It's not like the cops don't have just cause to arrest her."

"And what business is that for a PI? You respond to clients, not the law."

"Unless the law asks me to."

"But we both know the police haven't."

I glower at him. I had nothing more to argue with. He just smiled at me confidently.

Simon returned with our platters. Izaya said something more to Simon before he left once again.

I let out a heavy sigh. "Just get to the point. What do you want from me?"

Izaya just smiled. He picked up a piece of sushi. "Don't be like that. I'm just interested in you."

He put the sushi in his mouth.

"Just explain your goal so I can go home. You wouldn't threaten me for idol interest, you sociopath."

Izaya cocked a brow. He finished chewing and swallowed. "Sociopath? That's a bit of a stretch, don't you think?"

"Nope."

I know why I've never seen a pure black splotch on an aura before. The longer I talked to him, the more time I had to figure it out. His personality screams that of a sociopath. I'd never met one before, but I researched them extensively during my university days. He's not textbook perfect, but he's pretty close that I can piece it together.

The man chuckled. "Well, I won't argue with your point-of-view. You can obviously see things I can't."

I glower.

"Well, I guess I can be blunt with you. I want to use you to my advantage. You've made enemies with my clients, as I said before, and have painted a target on your back. Because of this, my clients have asked for your address. Very powerful clients that a simple PI like you won't be able to handle."

"Yakuza's don't scare me."

"You sure? They fully intend to remove you from the picture."

I let out a heavy sigh and lean forward. I grab a piece of sushi. "I'm not scared of dying."

I put the food in my mouth. He's staring at me. His eyes dilated with excitement. I noticed that despite my sunglasses. Great, he's a thrill seeker. He likes playing with fire.

"Well, if you have a choice of dying or becoming my information chain, which would you choose?"

I stared at him for a minute. I eat my sushi without a word since I don't know the answer to that. I've never been suicidal. I could be, with how hopeless this world is and how torturous my situation is. But I've never really thought about killing myself. I've always just gone with the flow. When I die, I know my father will take care of me in the afterlife. I know I won't be eaten by demons thanks to my bloodline. So, death doesn't really scare me. If anything, the process scares me. I don't want to die painfully, after all.

I let out another heavy sigh. "I doubt I can be a good chain for you."

"I think you could be a very useful ally."

"I'm not your ally." I glare up at him. "If you want me as an info chain, then our relationship is strictly business. If you die in a ditch, it's not my concern. Now if you want an _ally_, then you best be fucking blunt about what you want from me."

He stares at me for a moment. Then nods. "Fine. I want to use you. As an info chain. As an ally. As a bodyguard, if needed."

"What makes you think I know how to fight?"

"I know you can. Video evidence shows me that much."

I glower again.

"Hey, Simon." I call, raising my hand. "Can I get a to-go box for this?"

"Yes, yes!" The black man called.

Izaya smiled at me. "Is that a yes?"

I don't respond.

He chuckled. "Can I take your answer as confirmation?"

I still don't answer. Simon gave me a to-go box. I say thanks and he walks away. I pack up my sushi and stand.

"I'll contact you the next time I need you." Izaya sneered at me.

I glare at him. But I don't argue. Instead, I just walk away.

I hate being used. But I've always rolled with the punches, so I won't complain—for now. I'll just have to figure out how to get the bastard out of my life. Maybe it was time I move from Tokyo. Can I afford to move? Sapporo would be a good place to live. Or maybe Hokkaido. I should save up, so I can get out a Tokyo.

I would probably need to move eventually anyway. I don't know if I have eternal life or not. From the recollections of demigods in mythology, they all were killable and all could reach old age. It stands to reason that'll probably be my life too. I'll probably live a normal lifespan. But then again, who knows? Anubis is the God of the Dead. I may be banned from death.

Who was to say?

Not me, obviously. I can only handle my situations with complacency—less I fill with more hatred and spite than I already had.

As I walked, I became aware of the people around me. I could see an aura behind every one of them. Even with the sunglasses, I could still see the individual colors to an extent. Reds and greens and blues. Everyone was living a revolting, sinful existence. And I was stuck with them. All of them. Sour, depraved, and vile humanity surrounding me every day.

I bumped into someone. That was a bit annoying as I was shoulder-checked.

"Ow…"

"I-I'm s-sorry!"

I stare back at the blond. Then I cock a brow. His aura was pure white. This person was at least 18 but his aura was white. What is that? How is that possible? I write it off quickly because yellows trip me up. Yellows blended in well with the white so sometimes I became confused. That was most-likely the case. I tilt my sunglasses down to make sure.

White.

Pure white aura.

My eyes stretch wide.

…What? What is this? That's not possible.

"Um, I-I-I'm sorry." The blond bows to me, most-likely feeling awkward at my lack of response. "Please for-forgive me. I must go."

The blond turned.

"Wait!" I grab his arm.

He jolts and looks over his shoulder at me with those wide eyes. Wide red eyes. Red eyes like mine? What _is _this?

"U-um…um…"

"Who…who are you?"

"Um, um! Ki-Ki-Kishitani Tsuki-Tsuki-Tsukishi-shima."

"Kishitani? As in Kishitani Shingen?"

"Um, y-y-yes. He's-he's my uncle."

He's related to that corrupted scientist? And he has a white aura?

"How old are you?" I ask.

"Um, nin-nineteen."

Nineteen with a white aura? That's not possible. That's definitely not possible. Why? How? How the fuck is this a thing?

I…

I think I may have found a reason to stay in Tokyo for a while.

"Are you doing anything right now?" I ask.

"Um, n-no. I was—I was just he-heading home."

"Want to get a coffee with me?"

"Eh?"

I stare at him.

"Um…sure."

I smile. Seems like things are getting interesting.

* * *

**The idea of seeing aura's come from the first story I ever wrote. It was a series that I spent 6 years writing before I decided it was never going to see the light of day. So, I decided to take some of the elements from that and makes some stories from it.**  
**I may continue this concept but I don't have any form of plot other than Roppi sees aura's and Tsuki's special. I can probably figure something out, but not while I have 9 projects I'm currently working on. So this shall remain a one-shot.**  
**Hachimenroppi is my muse. Chances are, every drrr! story I write will have Roppi in it. Just saying~! That's why I have a lot about him. Not sorry. He doesn't get enough love.**  
**Thanks for reading. Don't forget to favorite, review and all that jazz. Hope to see you in the next one.**  
**KCK**


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